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Movies Forum Index » International Movies Forum » _The Lives of Others_; trailer for_No Country for Old Man_
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 Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 2:03 am |
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1985. It was a heroic age of words, dissident writers,
playwrights who go to jail and 25 years later become
presidents, and yet the hero of the film is the almost
wordless surveillance expert. That is the main failing of a
film which has a truly noble protagonist, the stasi
humanist who writes fictional reports to protect the
playwright and his lover. He pays for it with his career
and the life of the woman perhaps he loves vicariously. In
the end the playwright finds out and write a novel decided
to him -- yet we never get to hear a written word. Why
not? Has the director (a write all his life) that little faith in
words anymore? In this ignominous age of Abu Graib and
waterboarding, moral confusion and disengagement, is
there no one who still writes with a flaming sword?
The film has other failings too. The bald, reclusive
guardian angel voyeur/surveilllance expert recalls
Kieslowski's Joseph Kern and but also Patrice Leconte's
Monsieur Hire -- shut out of life, living through the lives
of others, particularly that of a woman who betrays.
(Thankfully, there is less Hitchcock here -- the voyeurism
is benign.) It is not entirely clear why he changes side.
Quote: From the start he is obsessed with the actress who is the
playwright's companion, but I suppose the death of the
blacklistd director also affects him deeply. Because
the playwright himself is never particularly convincing,
although his article for West Germany is inspiring -- one
can only wish there is more of it shown to us. The
director shows the surveillance expert readaing a book
of poems by Brecht stolen from his quary's apartment;
elsewhere the playwright laments that anyone who
listens to Beethoven's _Apassionata_ cannot be a
bad person. That seems so trite, a bourgeoise shorthand for culture
and goodness. (Of course, Sartre would say
weaknesss for beautiful women is bourgeoise in itself.)
Visually the film cannot be compared at all with _Red_ or
_Monsieur Hire_ -- the editing, cutting from the playwright's
apartment to the expert, sitting dead center in the frame,
is pedestrian in the extreme, repetitive, and artless. But
the film reminds us why so many decent people are turned
into informants. And mediocrity and all, it provoke a stronger
reaction in me than most films I've seen in months.
I've only seen the trailer for _No Country for Old Man_ but
I'm dreading the day I'll watch it on the big screen.
Rosenbaum is the only critic panning this film. My
concern is that it feels worlds away from McCarthy's
books. Not just the novel, one of his minor works, but
also _Outer Dark_ and _Blood Meridian_, where the
ruthless hitman/grim reapers/satanic Judge are mythical
forces of nature, unstoppable, physically and
philosophically at one with the violent
world McCarthy is so in love of depicting in its last bloody
detail. Unlike the central characters of these McCarthy's
novels, they know their places in the universe. Unlike
the Coen Brother's Chigurh, they don't mug for the
camera, much less entire every frame like the spaceship
Discovery in Kubrick;s _2001_. They should be treated
off-center, because like inverted, unholy ghosts, their
presence and darkness already haunt every frame. |
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